Platform approach to solve the POS adoption problem, Poynt is an mPOS that accepts NFC, QR, and other Wallets as well

Osama Bedier, former head of Google Wallet, has launched PoyntOS, an Android platform which can be touted as the world’s first payment terminal operating system, empowering developers with amazing tools to build applications for merchants. Small merchants today use a multitude of solutions running on various devices including outdated terminals, tablets, PCs, and phones. This not only creates a fragmented experience, but also adds up to additional costs in order to acquire the necessary hardware in addition to the apps.

Applications built on PoyntOS can run on Poynt Smart Terminals or in the cloud, providing an integrated and one-stop experience for the merchants. PoyntOS consists of an Android-based application platform and RESTful APIs for integration over cloud. PoyntOS helps developers integrate products and services into the same devices which banks distribute to merchants. This enables Poynt to bring the latest tools and technology, developed by third-party developers, right to the merchants.

Poynt’s developer partners include Vend, Kabbage, Swarm, Boomtown. Poynt is also offering the open platform as an SDK to other third party developers as well. With PoyntOS SDK, developers can bring the capabilities of large merchants down to small businesses. These capabilities include support for NFC, QR and mobile wallet services like Apple Pay, Google Wallet and others. New solutions can also be designed that can range from loyalty and CRM, to inventory and employee management as well.

Here is an illustration highlighting PoyntOS core structure:

Poynt also unveiled a new payment terminal yesterday showcasing it as the world’s first ‘smart’ payment terminal running on the PoyntOS. It is being dubbed as a future-proof payment terminal having the versatility of a mobile device and would be available at a price affordable for merchants. The Poynt Smart Terminal has been designed to meet all the PCI and EMV requirements since merchants have to replace their terminals by October 2015 due to the EMV mandate.

Osama Bedier, a long-time PayPal senior executive and currently the founder & CEO of Poynt, said in an official press release: "Consumers carry connected supercomputers in their pockets while in-store technology still centers around a glorified calculator. Solving for that disparity, we borrowed from the best in mobile technology to make the payment terminal smart and help small businesses rise to meet growing consumer expectations. With Poynt, merchants can also say, 'There's an app for that!'"

Here is an illustration to show how the terminal looks like:

Poynt’s payment terminal comes forth as a smart, multipurpose device. It features a dual touchscreen design with a merchant-facing 7 inch screen and a customer facing 4.3 inch screen. It can also act as a printer, a barcode scanner and comes with wireless connectivity capabilities. Some key highlights of the device are:

It supports multiple payment methods like traditional debit/credit cards, EMV chip-based cards, NFC payments as in Apple Pay and Google Wallet and also supports payment technologies like Bluetooth and QR code. So regardless of how consumers pay, merchants are ready to accept it all.

It uses current security technologies like TLS, DUKPT, 3DES, PKI and AES in order to secure sensitive payment data. Thus, it clearly meets the PCI and EMV requirements. The end-to-end encryption would relieve merchants of the risks of exposing customer’s information.

The smart terminal also comes with fraud and temper detection capabilities and can alerts merchants immediately in case fraudulent scenarios occur.

Since the terminal can stay connected wirelessly, it can perform a self-update via Internet. This would help in keeping up with necessary application updates like payment network requirements and security enhancements.

It can seamlessly integrate with the merchant’s current setup. The device works with any bank and integrates into the merchant’s existing solutions.

Here is an illustration highlighting the new terminal:

Apart from being headed by a Google Wallet veteran, Poynt’s talent team includes those experienced vastly in payments, mobile and commerce and have worked in companies like PayPal, eBay, Google, Amazon, Apple, Hypercom and Verifone. The Poynt Smart Terminal is available for $299 on pre-order and will be available in market from early 2015.

Ray has keen interest in the area of devices, OS and wireless technologies. He is a Mobile Technology enthusiast and believes that Mobility is going to completely change the way we do Payments and Commerce. He wishes to share this belief with the world by providing such content through LetsTalkPayments. Ray has done his engineering as well as MBA.

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